


talking to the moon

by yeeharley



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, BAMF Peter Parker, Bisexual Peter Parker, Curses, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gay Harley Keener, Halloween, M/M, Major Character Injury, No Smut, October Prompt Challenge, Protective Harley Keener, Protective Peter Parker, Witchcraft, Witches, but no smut, character illness, character injury, there'll be some making out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeeharley/pseuds/yeeharley
Summary: Footsteps, gentle and quiet, resonate underneath the crack in the door. Harley swallows dryly as the latch clicks, as the door creaks open, spilling warm light out into the dark night.He’s expecting some sort of old woman with a sharp nose and gray hair and cold eyes. Maybe a few warts. Hunched back. Black hat. Would a broom be overkill? Probably, but that’s the only instance of witches he’s ever seen.That’s not what he sees, though.Standing on the other side of the threshold is a boy- a teenaged boy, definitely no older than Harley and probably a year or so his junior. Russet brown hair curls down into his eyes, cascading over his forehead and tucking itself around his ears, where a pair of shining orange stones are inlaid.The boy looks up at him, a few inches shorter and just about as slim, dark eyes shimmering in the light of his house. He smiles- a cheshire smile, slightly scary and just a bit too toothy. His canines are sharp.“Can I help you?”(In a desperate bid to save his dying mother, Harley reaches out to the town witch only to find that he's growing attached way too much. Peter Parker vows to save his latest customer's mother at the expense of his own wellbeing)
Relationships: Harley Keener & Harley Keener's Mother, Harley Keener & Harley Keener's Sister & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, welcome to my Halloween celebration! I plan to have it finished by the end of October, but life gets in the way sometimes, so please be understanding and drop a comment or kudos if you like it! Thanks, darlings <3
> 
> My tumblr: silver-bubbles :)

Harley’s childhood is filled with scraped knees, bumped elbows, and papercuts, just like every other kid he knows. 

He falls off of his tricycle, his bike, his skateboard. 

Ends up with concussions during baseball season from sliding too hard and knocking helmets. Gets beat up behind the high school and learns how to fight, a boy of bruised knuckles and sharp eyes and a hateful tongue.

He learns and grows. Changes from a wide-eyed little boy who waits for his daddy to come home to a preteen with gap teeth and a wide smile to an angry, hurt, dangerous teenager.

And everybody around him changes with him.

Harley Keener is not special. Harley Keener is like every other kid. Sneaks out after dark. Smokes behind trucks in the gas station parking lot. Tries to figure out the best way to get back at the senior who spit at him and called him gay.

He sits in the back of a tractor trailer with his friends- or the people he  _ thought  _ were his friends- in the middle of the night, laughing and eating chips and telling ghost stories that scare the living shit out of the others. They tell him he’s the best at storytelling, and he  _ runs  _ with it, because he’s never been the best at anything before and he wants to show them that,  _ yeah,  _ Harley James Keener tells the best damn ghost stories in Rose Hill and you’d better believe it.

The big distinction to make, though, is that his stories are fake.

Yarn spun in the back of his mind that just happens to spill off of his tongue and into the ears of others.

They’re scary, sure, but Harley sleeps at night knowing that they are his. The other boys see his words in their nightmares, their closets, the backs of their beat-up junk cars when they’re driving home after work and it’s dark.

Harley tells them and then leaves them. They’re nothing but stories.

But there’s one back-of-the-truck night that sticks with him for years, lingers in the corner of his brain reserved for fears, haunts his every sleeping moment like a shadow with no source. 

And, in the end, it’s the one back-of-the-truck night that really and truly matters.

It’s late- maybe even to the point of being very, very early- and Harley is, once again, sitting in the bed of Aidan Wilson’s monster of a pickup truck with a lit cigarette in one hand and his hoodie pulled tight around his shoulders. He’s just finished with his story (as usual, he’s managed to make the biggest boys in Rose Hill afraid of the dark) and the guy to his left- Cade Arnette- is about to take his turn.

Cade isn’t usually very good with stories.

His vocabulary is lacking, he can’t write a decent jumpscare for shit, and if Harley’s being honest, they’re rarely even mildly scary.

But this time, it’s different. Because Cade starts out with those infamous words, the ones Harley’s heard around town for the last half-decade.

“Have you heard about the witch in the house on the edge o’ the woods?”

With that one question, every pair of eyes in the truck immediately flashes to Cade, fixing on his lips. Harley instinctually burrows further into his hoodie and lifts the cigarette to his lips, sucking in before blowing a small puff of smoke out from between his teeth.

“Not this bullshit again.” Aidan laughs, but there’s a nervous edge to his voice and the way he’s watching Cade says much more than his words.

The fourth boy in the truck, Levi, punches Aidan in the arm and hisses out a  _ shut up. _

They like this story. It scares them, but they like it.

“Alright,” Cade says, glaring daggers at Aidan out of the corner of his eye. “So ya’ll’ve heard about the witch in the woods on the west side o’ town.”

The three other boys nod in tandem. Harley takes another drag on his cigarette and leans back against Cade’s hunting bag.

“You already know the first part o’ the story, then.” His voice drops down to a low murmur and, eyes dancing with sly fire, reaches his left hand out and places it palm-up in the middle of their little circle. “Rose Hill’s just comin’ into existence when she sets up camp in some kinda shack on the edge of the settlement. Nobody really knows what to do with ‘er ‘cause she’s pretty weird, but she keeps to ‘erself and everyone let’s ‘er.”

Yeah, Harley’s heard this story many times, but never at night in the middle of one of the old cow pastures. He’s sure Cade’s got a gun somewhere in his truck, and he’s got a knife with a three-inch blade and a lighter, but that’s not enough to fight off a witch.

He doesn’t think any of the boys have a Bible with them, either.

“And it stays this way for a pretty long time,” Cade continues. His hand flips over, fingers dancing in the air like he’s playing an imaginary piano (Harley knows for a fact that this boy couldn’t play the piano any more than he could do calculus). “But, eventually, as Rose Hill grows and starts to reach the woods, she starts to wonder if they’re gonna get into her territory. Ya know, people here have bad habits with trespassing, and no witch wants people all over her property.”

_ Harley doesn’t really want anyone all over his family’s property, either. Does that make him a bad person? Hell, no. _

“And as they keep expanding, she gets more and more afraid that they’re going to mess around with her.” 

Cade’s expression is devilish, illuminated by the beam of Levi’s hunting flashlight. Harley shivers again, grimacing.

His cigarette is burning low.

“So she decides to send a message,” he murmurs. His right hand hovers in midair, tracing out what Harley assumes are letters. “Writes it on the trees outside of her domain-  _ abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” _

Harley blinks, surprised. He’s about eighty percent sure Cade had slept through their freshman Ancient Literature course, but go figure.

Levi, sitting beside him, burrows into the arm of his coat like a small child. Harley moves away.

He doesn’t need any more reasons for people to mess with him, and Levi knows that.

“The townspeople see the message, and they ignore it.”  _ Of course they do.  _ “They keep movin’, buildin’ houses and pastures- just like this one- all over the witch’s land. And with every foot they step into her domain, she gets angrier and angrier until she calls upon all her witchy shit-”  _ eloquent, Cade, very eloquent-  _ “and gets her revenge.”

This is the part of the story he hates. The part he’s despised ever since Abby, the light of his life, was born.

“She casts a spell over the village,” Cade whispers. “on a rainy night in the middle of October, when it’s gettin’ close to Halloween and she’s at her strongest. And she waits for a week or so until she knows it’s gonna go into effect, and then she goes back into her house an’ celebrates.

“The next Monday, right after Sabbath, a little girl goes missin’.” 

Harley bites his lip, closes his eyes. Not Abby. Not real.

“And then the another the next, and the next, an’ the next. Every Monday for a month, a family loses one o’ their kids. They stop movin’ into her territory for fear o’ losin’ even more, and everythin’ goes back to normal- or, as normal as it would ever be again.” Cade trails off, grinning toothily at the others. “An’ they say that if you go out into the woods on the west side o’ town and pass the first mile marker, the witch’ll come out and take you too.”

They’re quiet for a little while after that. Harley’s cigarette burns its way down to the butt and singes his fingers, but he barely reacts, only tossing it to the ground and crushing it under the heel of his shoe.

He goes home that morning around five, sneaks past his mother and sister’s rooms, and hammers a box of three-inch nails into the head of a baseball bat. Finds his long-gone father’s shotgun in the back of their attic, cleans it up, and goes out to one of the abandoned pastures for an afternoon of shooting old aluminum cans.

His score is eight out of ten on the first day.

Harley isn’t about to let any witch hurt his family, fake or not.

-

Harley’s mom gets sick when he hits his senior year of high school, and his feet are swept out from under him by the amount of fear that comes with not knowing if he’s about to lose his only present parental figure.

She weakens quickly- it happens almost overnight, and that might be the scariest thing about it.

One night, she’s coughing and blowing her nose ( _ “Just a cold,”  _ she’d said in response to Harley and Abby’s concerned looks,  _ “I’ll be alright”) _ .

The next morning, Harley packs up his backpack for school, chugs a thermos of coffee, and swings by her room to say good-bye before he leaves. He’s greeted with a gray, drawn face nestled into the cushions; the wrinkles around his mother’s mouth are more defined than they’d been only a few hours ago.

He tries to help her out of bed.

She can’t do anything more than stay still as he lifts her off of the pillows and moves her to the couch in the living room, shouting for Abby to tell his teacher he’s not coming before calling nine one one.

Harley screams for them to come help his mother. They send an ambulance, take her to the only hospital in Rose Hill, and tell him that she’ll be fine.

Then, they call him back just to tell him that they have no idea what’s wrong and they can’t do anything about it. He should just come pick her up, take her home, and hope it passes.

He tells them  _ exactly  _ what he thinks about that idea. Tears the lead doctor a new one before pushing Macy in all her wheelchair-d glory out to his waiting Silverado, lifting her into the passenger seat, and roaring out of that hospital parking lot like the devil’s on his heels.

“They coulda done better,” he had snapped, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “They coulda done  _ better,  _ mama.”

Macy’s hand had found his right wrist, holding it gently between frail fingers. She hadn’t said anything, but he’d known what she had meant.

She knew they hadn’t tried.

Over the course of six months, Harley calls every specialist within a hundred mile radius of Rose Hill in a series of desperate attempts to save his mother. 

A steady cycle of men and women makes its way through their front door. 

Nobody knows what to do. 

Harley doesn’t know  _ what to do. _

He goes so far as to pray, knelt by the side of his bed for hours on end with his head in his hands and his heart on his sleeve. The Keener family has never done much in terms of passing religion on- Macy is a devout Christian, of course, and Abby says grace before dinner.

Harley hasn’t ever looked to a higher power for help.

He doesn’t have anyone here on earth, though, so in the end, there isn’t anywhere else to turn.

Macy spends her days in bed with a Bible clutched in her hands and her eyes closed, lips moving wordlessly to the tune of some prayer she knows by heart and can repeat without thought.

Sometimes, Harley wishes he could turn so faithfully to something bigger than him.

In the end, though, nothing happens. She stays weak and tired and keeps getting worse and he runs out of options. 

Runs out of money.

The Keener family reaches a point where, despite all of their hard work and persistance, they’re barely scraping by. 

Macy’s job as a waitress had been their sole stream of income, so they’d already been close to the bottom of the barrell when she’d fallen ill. Harley had occasionally brought in little bursts of cash from fixing peoples’ cars or delivering parts to the local mechanic, but that’s not a stable job.

They can’t survive on  _ little bursts of cash.  _ He needs a  _ job,  _ something with a reliable salary. Something to keep Abby fed and Macy’s bills paid.

Something to keep them in their  _ house,  _ for God’s sake.

Harley just needs to pay the bills. Electricity. Water. Groceries.

It’s a late night when Macy finds him crying at the kitchen table, head resting in his hands as he stares down at a stack of papers marked with red ink with a pen in his hand. His AP Calculus homework and textbook are pushed aside, all but forgotten along with his dinner and a glass of water leaving rings on the table as condensation drips down, down, down.

“I dropped out,” he croaks, red eyes darting up to meet hers.

He looks ashamed of himself. Disappointed. After all, he’d been a senior. If he’d just been able to make it a few more months, he could’ve-

Macy doesn’t say anything she’s thinking about. Doesn’t tell him he should enroll again, because she knows he won’t.

He’s like his father, even though she knows he would hate to hear it. James Keener- the man Harley had gotten his ever-hated middle name from- had been the most stubborn man Macy had ever met, and Harley’d inherited every bit of that hard-headedness.

She knows he hates it.

Knows he’ll ignore anything she tells him to do.

So, instead of doing what she knows a mother should do, Macy just leans forward, using the back of Harley’s chair for support, and pulls him into her arms.

He buries his face in her chest and  _ sobs.  _ For what feels like hours, he cries and cries and cries like a little boy, eventually tiring him out so much that he falls asleep right there with his head on top of that stack of awful bills.

She leaves him there. 

Can’t muster up the strength to move him to his bed.

Macy goes to sleep that night with a heavy heart and tears in her eyes, knowing that there’s nothing that can be done about their awful situation but very much aware of the fact that there’s nothing she can do to change it.

Harley is doing his best to keep them above the water. She just wonders if he’s going to let himself drown.

-

The idea hits him while he’s driving Abby to school on the way to his job at the local grocery store. 

He’s roaring across empty, cracked roads, swerving to avoid potholes left and right, arm hanging out the driver’s seat window. There’s a burnt-out cigarette between his fingers; Abby’s promised not to tell Macy that he’s smoking again. 

He knows he shouldn’t. Knows it’s not healthy, but it helps him feel like he can breathe.

Harley can’t really stop at this point. 

He’s turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

And he can’t find it inside him to care.

They’re about to turn into town, wheeling around the corner with speed that leaves Abby crowing, when he sees it- the pasture where Cade had parked his truck for them to tell their stories at three in the morning, overgrown with kudzu and a plethora of small, yellow flowers.

Their group has long since dispersed- Levi works at a gas station, Cade joined the army by lying on his recruitment form (Harley isn’t a snitch), Aidan’s the only one still in school, and Harley had ditched back in junior year when he first came out.

But he still remembers.

_ And they say, if you go out in the woods and keep moving past the first mile marker, the witch will come out to take you, too. _

Harley hasn’t ever dabbled in witchcraft- Macy would have a conniption if he did. That kind of thing is just as taboo in Rose Hill as being gay is. The townspeople would lable him as some kind of devil-spawn and that would be the end of him.

But if he’s already got one strike against himself-

_ And besides,  _ he thinks, turning into the parking lot of Rose Hill Elementary and letting Abby out after kissing her forehead,  _ the worst thing that could happen is that she takes me away. _

Would it really be too bad to be taken? To let himself be removed from all of this, leave Abby and Macy with the money he’s saved up and one less mouth to feed?

Wouldn’t that  _ help? _

_ Yeah. Yeah, that would help. _

There’s really no way he could go wrong here; either the witch helps his mother without removing him from the equation, or he removes  _ himself. _

Harley’s day job is at a Publix on the east side of Rose Hill. Everyone there knows and addresses him as Hal, which he hates with every fiber of his body. He stocks shelves, bags groceries, and helps people find what they need.

It pays minimum wage. He needs to be making more- would rather be doing something else- but nobody else would take him, so here he is.

Harley parks his truck in the back, hops out, and works like a machine for hours. He moves shipments of food, heavy and hard on his back, inside from the delivery area box-by-box. Restocks shelves of Frosted Flakes and Cheerios. Helps an older man find the hand sanitizer before explaining the names of the chemicals on the back because he doesn’t want anything carcinogenic and doesn’t seem to understand that it’s  _ hand sanitizer. _

The day runs long. Hour after hour piles up, and the entire time, Harley is thinking about the witch. Weighing pro’s and con’s. Trying to figure out if it’s the right thing to do, the Godly thing to do, and settles on a very firm  _ no. _

But it’s the  _ only  _ thing to do.

Harley waves a quiet good-bye to his manager, a woman in her forties who goes by Eileen, before jogging across the parking lot with his keys in his hand. 

It’s dark. Has to be past eleven now, if not later. He can barely see past the halos cast by the golden streetlights.

_ He should just go home.  _

Should he?

_ He  _ **_can_ ** _ just go home. _

Harley shakes his head, bites out a bitter laugh, and starts his truck.

No, he can’t.

The drive out to the west side takes about twenty minutes at a slow pace, and Harley spends every one of those minutes wondering whether or not he should turn back. 

He brakes hard for about eight deer. Swerves to avoid hitting one- a buck with a rack of antlers that must be three feet wide.

They all just stare at him before trotting their way off of the road, slow and deliberate and so  _ absolutely stupid. _

Is Harley being stupid? Hanging out in the middle of an open road, waiting for a car to come hit him?

He has the chance to get out of the road.

He doesn’t take it. Keeps driving, further and further into the west side, until he reaches the end.

There’s a cul-de-sac on the edge of town where teenagers hold parties. He can tell they’ve had one recently; when he steps out of his car, nail-studded baseball bat in hand, an empty beer can crunches loudly under his heel.

Harley flips the flashlight on. 

Shines it in the direction of the woods.

Takes a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly, before moving forward at a brisk pace, stepping over the curb into a bed of pinestraw.

He lingers at the edge of the woods, staring up at the canopy of dark trees, too high for his flashlight beam to reach.

This is for his family.

_ This is for his mother. _

Harley steps across the boundary, and this time, he doesn’t linger or look back. He just- he just  _ moves,  _ because if he stops, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep going.

There’s a buzzing in his stomach, low and angry and terrified. He hasn’t felt this way since Cade met him behind the high school and beat the living shit out of him. He’d left with a black eye, a bloody lip, and a new appreciation for the consequences of coming out when you aren’t ready for the fall out.

Cade had left with a dislocated shoulder, a concussion from being slammed into the school’s brick wall, and an understanding of how dangerous Harley Keener could be when he put his mind to it.

Harley had vowed to never let himself feel that helpless again.

He’d kept that vow.

Now, surrounded by towering pine trees and silence and darkness, Harley clenches his fingers tight around the handle of his bat and slings it over his shoulder, stepping purposefully over fallen branches and patches of moss. Pine needles crunch under the soles of his workboots. Somewhere overhead, an owl cries out. Harley sweeps his flashlight up, can’t catch a glimpse of the bird, and turns it back to his path.

Something green catches his eye.

He steps forward, biting his lip, nerves humming, to see  _ mile marker one  _ written on an aluminum sign.

The metal is scratched and graffitied.

“Oh, God,” Harley murmurs, staring up at the sign with an amount of trepidation he doesn’t think he’s ever felt. It looks like someone’s taken a  _ knife  _ to it- maybe fingernails? Oh,  _ God. _

Written in black paint across the bottom in a scrawl that makes him think a kid came out here to scare people, there are eight words.

_ Do not pass, for the witch lies beyond. _

A bit eloquent for a kid, but okay.

_ If you pass the first mile marker. If you pass the first mile marker. If you pass the first mile marker. _

Moving carefully, Harley steps around the sign, holding his breath as his feet hit the ground on the other side. He half expects some sort of monster- maybe a demon?- to swoop down from the trees and carry him away, braces himself for an attack, and-

Nothing happens.

There’s no witch, no monster, no demon.

Has he come all the way out here for nothing? He’s probably been walking for thirty minutes, and getting back to his house is a  _ forty minute drive _ . Abby and Macy probably think he’s dead or maybe that he’s  _ left them, just like dad- _

No. He can’t go back now.

Not when he’s so close.

Maybe he just has to go further?

Harley steels himself against the wall of fear before him and keeps moving. Treks further and further into the woods, passing gnarled trees and rock formations and patches of stagnant water. He walks for what must be hours, passing marker after marker, desperation drawing him further and further.

It has to be two in the morning when he finally decides that it’s time to turn back. 

Heaving a deep breath, Harley lets his shoulders drop. He’s about to turn and start the long walk back to his truck when he sees it- a golden light hovering a few feet away.

A globe.

It’s just- it’s just  _ floating,  _ about four feet in the air, emanating a soft warmth. The color isn’t harsh- it’s light, like melted butter.

“Witch,” Harley breathes, sucking a sharp breath in through his nose.

The globe bobs. 

_ Moves. _

Starts to drift to the right, slowly, like it’s making sure he sees where it’s going.

“You want me to follow?” He asks, voice hushed and quiet, as if he’s witnessing some kind of ritual. Miracle, more like it.

It bobs, just once, before continuing in the same direction.

And Harley, against all his better judgment, follows.

Follows it through the woods.

Sloshes through a stream, wincing as the edges of his pants soak with cold water. The globe bobs cheerily ahead of him.

Harley walks for another ten minutes or so, following the ball of light like it’s an anchor in a stormy sea, until another light appears in the distance.

The light grows.

Grows.

Grows until he’s facing a small cottage, thatched roof and all. The globe stops on the front porch, next to a small arrangement of herbs, and hovers in front of the door.

There’s a light on inside. It’s the same color as the globe, cheerful and buttery yellow.

“This is where you’re from?” Harley asks, throat dry.

The globe bobs and promptly disappears.

_ Well, it would be awful to come all this way and not get what you’re looking for. _

It takes three strides of his freakishly (okay, maybe not  _ that  _ freakish, but he certainly thinks so) long legs to span the steps of the porch. Under his feet, a cloth mat in front of the door spells out  _ welcome  _ in neat cursive. 

Harley looks down, absentmindedly scuffing his shoes against the mat, and knocks. 

A simple rap of his fingers. 

Then another.

_ Is this the right thing to do? Is he doing some sort of really bad religious taboo shit to save his very religious mother? _

Possibly.

But it’s too late to go back now.

Footsteps, gentle and quiet, resonate underneath the crack in the door. Harley swallows dryly as the latch clicks, as the door creaks open, spilling warm light out into the dark night.

He’s expecting some sort of old woman with a sharp nose and gray hair and cold eyes. Maybe a few warts. Hunched back. Black hat. Would a broom be overkill? Probably, but that’s the only instance of witches he’s ever seen.

That’s not what he sees, though.

Standing on the other side of the threshold is a  _ boy-  _ a teenaged boy, definitely no older than Harley and probably a year or so his junior. Russet brown hair curls down into his eyes, cascading over his forehead and tucking itself around his ears, where a pair of shining orange stones are inlaid. 

The boy looks up at him, a few inches shorter and just about as slim, dark eyes shimmering in the light of his house. He smiles- a cheshire smile, slightly scary and just a  _ bit  _ too toothy. His canines are sharp. 

This boy, whatever he is, isn’t human.

“Can I help you?” He asks, voice lilting, syllables sharp and precise. “Or are you just going to stand there and stare at me until the sun comes up?”

Harley is very, very aware of the way his mouth is gaping open. He must look like an idiot, standing here with his mouth open like a goldfish, gawking at a stranger on his doorstep.

But he can’t seem to open his mouth.

The boy tilts his head to one side, lips pursed, and gives Harley a cursory glance. Something in his gaze softens. Melted butter on the counter. Ice cream dripping in the sun.

“You must be tired.” He steps aside, sock feet scuffling against the floor, and swings an arm out in the direction of the interior of his house. “Come inside and rest.”

Is there something about going inside witches’ houses? Is there something about  _ not  _ going inside witches’ houses?

_ Probably,  _ Harley thinks.

But it has just become painfully obvious how tired he is; he’s been walking all night and a good part of the morning.

He really does want to rest.

So he steps inside. Warily casts a glance at the boy, who smiles a significantly-less-toothy smile than before.

Somehow, the difference settles the nerves in his stomach.

He shouldn’t let his guard down.

Can’t really help it, though.

The inside of the cabin is warm, filled with light, and absolutely  _ covered  _ in Star Wars posters. Darth Vader. Luke Skywalker. Leia. Harley blinks, staring at one from  _ Empire Strikes Back _ hanging above a large bowl of purple rocks and a string of cloudy-white beads.

“You can go ahead and sit down there,” the boy says, pointing at a comfy-looking, possibly overstuffed couch in the living room. “I’ll get you some tea, okay? Then we can talk.”

Harley nods, still wordless, and plops down on a fluffy cushion. He glances at the coffee table, which is also- surprise- covered in gems and a few rare-looking plants. Also mint. Why mint? Doesn’t seem like it fits in very well. 

A warm cup of tea plunks itself down on the table, right in his line of sight, and Harley jumps. Wide eyed, he stares up at the boy, who settles down on the opposite side of the couch with a cup of his own floating beside his left shoulder.

“You made that-”

“I did.”

“You’re really a-”

The boy nods, eyes shining with mirth, before moving his pointer finger to the table. The cup sets itself down beside a large piece of tiger’s eye.

“I am,” he says gently. “Can I get a name, blondie?”

_ Are you supposed to give witches your name? Doesn’t that give them some sort of power over you? _

_ Nah, that’s faeries. _

“Harley,” Harley croaks, taking a sip of his still-steaming tea. “I’m H-Harley James Keener.”

“Nice name.” A pale hand is reached out in his direction. He takes it. Shakes it. Gulps. “I’m Peter Parker, Harley, and it’s lovely to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

_ He sounds so scared. Needs to stop that. Look strong, look dangerous, look like someone who’s not to be fucked with. This boy- this Peter- is a threat. Dangerous. _

“Now,  _ Harley James Keener,”  _ Peter murmurs around a mouthful of tea. His eyebrow, crooked perfectly above his left eye, twitches up into an arch. “What can I do for you?”

At Harley’s surprised expression, he laughs.

“People come to me for favors, Harley. Because they need something. Want something. Not because they want to make friends.”

Taking a deep breath, Harley wrings his hands, focusing in on the earring in Peter’s right lobe to avoid looking him in the eyes.

“My mom,” he says, voice shaking. “She’s- she’s real sick, has been for a while. I’ve done everythin’ I can, but I’m workin’ a job and still runnin’ out of money an’ I didn’t know where to go.”

Peter’s expression is sympathetic, lips downturned, and from the way he nods, it’s clear that he’s had people come to him about things like this before. He pulls his feet up from the ground, crosses them in his lap, and takes the cup in his hands.

“What’s her name?”

No hesitation. “Macy Keener. Macy  _ Elizabeth  _ Keener.”

Peter’s eyes close for a moment, barely a blink, before he’s opening them. His jaw clenches, the muscle working as he seems to drift off for a moment. 

There’s an orange glow to his eyes.

_ Volcanic,  _ Harley thinks.

He is volcanic. Not a boy.

An entity. 

Peter is an  _ entity. _

“I’ll do what I can,” he says, coming back down to earth with a grit to his teeth. “For her.”

There’s a pregnant pause between them. Awkward, perhaps, because suddenly, Harley’s wondering if there’s anything he  _ can  _ do.

“Thank you,” he whispers, taking a sip of what tastes like peppermint. 

Peter nods slowly and takes a deep breath, cocking his head further to the right like a lost puppy. “And you, Harley,” he says, curious and soft. “What do you want?”

_ What? _

“I’m just here for my momma.”

The laugh that escapes Peter’s lips is borderline cynical. He kicks his legs out, breaching the center of the couch to come over to Harley’s side, and throws an arm around Harley’s shoulders without so much as a warning.

Tensing, Harley sets his cup down and angles his body toward the other boy, refusing to let him out of his sight. Peter doesn’t seem to be planning anything, though- he just looks up at Harley with that toothy grin and shakes his head.

“No, you’re not,” he purrs. “You might not  _ know  _ that you’re here for anything else, but you are. Fess up,  _ Harls.” _

The nickname sends a shiver down Harley’s spine. He finds himself inching closer to Peter, eyes fixed on his lap, cheeks burning hot. He shouldn’t be feeling like this.

_ Shouldn’t be- _

That’s it.

“I’m gay,” he blurts out, biting his lip. “And I’m lonely. Because of that.”

Peter is silent for a moment, and Harley can’t bring himself to look over. His arm doesn’t move, still spanning the width of his shoulders, but his  _ energy  _ seems different than before. Less coarse. Spiky.

“I can help with that, too,” Peter says.

Harley looks at him in surprise, brow furrowed, and shrugs out of his grip. “How could you help me?” He asks, maybe too harshly.

Peter doesn’t look hurt by his change in demeanor. “I understand being lonely. Feeling like something about you is fundamentally wrong. I get it.”

Laughing harshly, Harley shakes his head. “This was a mistake. I should never have come here.”

He turns toward the door, ready to leave, make the long journey home, because he’s not okay with this, not okay with this,  _ not okay. _

But there’s an invisible force pulling at his sternum. Stopping him mid-step. Pulling him to a halt, freezing him bone by bone, muscle by muscle.

His chest feels like it’s been dropped into an ice bath.

_ Harley is going to die here.  _ Peter,  _ Peter the witch,  _ is going to kill him for disrespecting him and nobody is going to help his family.

A pair of warm hands land on his frozen shoulders, long fingers curling much too close to his neck. Peter’s breath is warm against his skin, puffy exhales and little inhales. He smells like rosemary.

Harley can feel lips against his skin as Peter, fingers tracing circles into his shoulders, leans in and speaks.

“You don’t get any take-backs, Harley,” he hisses. “You came to me for help, and you’re getting it whether you like it or not.”

Harley’s quaking with fear now, unable to move as Peter crosses around to his front and pushes himself up onto his tiptoes to study his face. Their noses are practically touching, so close,  _ so close. _

Peter traces his index finger over Harley’s cheek. The corner of his lip quirks up as he leans in again, lips brushing his ear, and smiles.

“Go home, Keener. I’ll contact you when I need you.”

And everything goes black.

Harley wakes up in his bed, the sun shining through his window, with an inescapable feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

_ What has he done? _


	2. NOTE

Hey! So I made the decision to post this in a one-shot format, which you can find here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282424. Sorry that this isn't a real update, but the finished product is over there! I'll be deleting this by next Friday, so I'm sorry for any inconveniences <3 Thank you for all of your support!


End file.
